Set location manually without Google location services? - Android Software/Hacking General [Developers Only]

Hi @ all,
I'm interested in getting an Android phone next year. I've already tested some and the OS is really great, but there are still some questions open for me.
One is: Is it possible to set my location in Android manually, that means without the Google location service?
Reason is that I do not want to send my location data to Google (why should they get a moving profile of me?) - I don't agree with such spy practices...
Please do not discuss about my opinion about this, I simply want to have an answer to my question - possible yes or no, and if yes: how can it be done?
Thanks
Zap

Hey,
Im using a Desire using RCMixHD v12 and there are options under Settings>Location. There, you can turn off using GPS and turn off using Wireless networks (Wi-Fi and mobile networks). Im not too sure if there are any others but that should suffice for you I would assume?
Also, with most applications you can set a specific location rather than using "Current Location"
Kris

This is unfortunately not exactly what I was thinking about. Let me describe what I mean:
I.e. look at a HTC Desire or a Wildfire with a Standard ROM (2.1/2.2) - when you set up the device it is asking you "Do you want to activate the "my location" service?" and as description it shows "Allow the device to send your location data to Google, without this service your location cannot be displayed." or somehow similar.
What I do not like is that my location is sent to Google, because I do not know which data is sent along with this - i.e. together with IMEI and phone number they could get a moving profile of the user.
When you leave this deactivated, your device is i. e. not able to show the location you are situated at under the Sense flip clock and you cannot force it to show the location because it always asks again if you want to activate that stupid Google location service.
Under Sense for Windows Mobile (I'm using a HTC Topaz actually) you can set your location manually (via the weather application and the clock settings), even if the lovation service is switched off. The device then shows weather and time of the manually set location in the sense clock, but doesn't send it to the big G.
This is what I want to know, I hope the description was clearly enough...
Sorry for the bad English, I'm not a native speaker...

Related

[HELP] Tasker - send SMS by app, location.

I'll start off with background: I'm 16 and recently started driving. My parents are kinda paranoid and want me to text them every time I leave or arrive somewhere. I'm lazy and forgetful and they think I'm dead if I don't text them. See my dilemma?
I wanted to try and help myself out. I downloaded Ulysses speedometer thing and tasker. My idea is to have it so that tasker will catch when Ulysses is open and send my mom an sms saying I'm leaving and then when it closes say I have arrived. It would also be cool if it could enable/disable GPS and awesome if iit would tell her my location.
I tried just the basic part but couldn't get it to send the message when I opened Ulysses. My question is, can somebody who knows more about tasker than me (I know how it works but it gets confusing) help me get this working? It would be awesome and if my driving led to me getting a job I might be able to donate you some moneys or something. In the least I can give you a virtual cookie and/or hug.
Thanks!
Sent from my MIUI SCH-i500
Bump, I could really use some help with this.
Sent from my MIUI SCH-i500
Bump again, this is my last try. I got everything figured out to have it start GPS, get location and everything... I just can't get it to send SMS which is the main idea. Even making another profile whose only function is to send an SMS doesn't work. Am I doing something wrong?
Sent from my MIUI SCH-i500
I dont know Ulysses, but if you combine the "App" context with a GPS location context this could cause problems because the App context only becomes active in the instant where the app is started. So if you start the app and you are not at the location from where you want to send the SMS, then the profile does not become active and no SMS will be sent (clear ? )
I would not use the App context and GPS Location for this, but rather the "cell near" context. This context can be calibrated to a specific location by scanning the cell towers in range and it does not eat as much battery as the GPS. I use this for setting my phone to silent when I am at work, or switching of the keylock when I am at home.
With the cell near context it should be possible to use the "send SMS" action.
You can also try to combine it with a timer or set a flag to avoid multiple SMS in case you come close to some other cell tower for a short time and the profile switches on and off.
If you want your position to be included in the SMS you can use the "Get Location" action. It uses either GPS or net based location.
For GPS: When your profile becomes active (activated by cell near), set the GPS to be switched on, and use the "Get Location" action (which has to be set to GPS). Allow some timeout to get the fix, then your position should be stored in the variable %LOC, which you can use in your SMS text. Then send SMS and switch off GPS.
For net location: also use the "Get Location", but set it to "Net". You have to have Internet connection to get a location that way, and in your location settings (phone settings) "use wireles networks" (or something like this) has to be activated. Net Location is not as accurate as GPS, but normally its not as much of a hazzle to get a fix. I think the net location is stored in %LOCN afterwards...
Hope I didnt get anything wrong, just wrote that from the top of my head.. Just use the help buttons in the different action tabs to get the detailed info.
While I applaud the effort you are making to try and automate the process of letting your parents know that you are safe, I am sure that they would appreciate it more if the SMS came from you personally and not from a machine. Make an effort to consider their feelings of anxiety while you are a young driver, and take the time to text (or maybe even call them). Drive safely!
or just use latitude
Thanks for the replies guys. Will be trying that long one out. I have been trying to send personal texts, and usually I can remember when I'm leaving but I forget to send one when I arrive. Just trying to avoid trouble with this. And I've tried latitude but I use a GAFYD account as my default and it doesn't support check-ins with latitude. And latitude won't let me use my secondary gmail account.
Sent from my MIUI SCH-i500

[Q] Weather showing country as "current location" instead of town

OK, this is really bugging me.
(and yes, I know that there are similar topics elsewhere but none of them actually seem to help me resolve the problem)
Until recently, my weather application would automatically and correctly identify and show my nearest TOWN as the "current location". This also appeared on the homescreen.
Now, for some reason, it's persistently only giving me the COUNTRY as current location, i.e. United Kingdom in my case.
The only thing I've changed recently was to remove one or two of the cities that I wasn't interested in from the list, and added a couple of other ones.
I've tried disabling and re-enabling "use wireless networks" for location setting, and also I've ensured that background data and auto sync are both ON.
Google maps evidently knows where I am from the cellphone data, so apparently the locations data is being received from the cell towers. Presently using THREE as service provider.
Is there a way to reset the weather settings? I'm reluctant to manually clear all the data from the associated apps in case it completely breaks it, and I don't really want to factory reset.
Ideas, anyone ? Thanks.
- Steve
fasty said:
OK, this is really bugging me.
(and yes, I know that there are similar topics elsewhere but none of them actually seem to help me resolve the problem)
Until recently, my weather application would automatically and correctly identify and show my nearest TOWN as the "current location". This also appeared on the homescreen.
Now, for some reason, it's persistently only giving me the COUNTRY as current location, i.e. United Kingdom in my case.
The only thing I've changed recently was to remove one or two of the cities that I wasn't interested in from the list, and added a couple of other ones.
I've tried disabling and re-enabling "use wireless networks" for location setting, and also I've ensured that background data and auto sync are both ON.
Google maps evidently knows where I am from the cellphone data, so apparently the locations data is being received from the cell towers. Presently using THREE as service provider.
Is there a way to reset the weather settings? I'm reluctant to manually clear all the data from the associated apps in case it completely breaks it, and I don't really want to factory reset.
Ideas, anyone ? Thanks.
- Steve
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
my suggestion may be clear the weather data from applications find the weather app and clear all data!!
restart the app..might pick up ur town!!
Thanks Muru11.
Curiously though, a colleague's HTC phone (a Wildfire S) has started doing exactly the same thing. It just displays "United Kingdom" for weather.
He's on a different network too.
I'm wondering if the weather forecast provider or HTC have upset the database for our area. I'm going to sit back and wait for a while before taking any drastic measures!
- Steve
Update : A search through the HTC UK page on facebook suggests that this problem is affecting quite a few HTC UK users.
HTC proposed a solution to one person, which involved twiddling a lot of settings and apparently didn't work.
Hopefully the issue has been escalated.
- Steve

[Q] Incorrect Weather Location; No prediction for hardware keyboard

Hey everyone,
I'm experiencing a couple minor issues with my MyTouch 4G Slide and wanted to see if anyone had any input.
First is the weather location... when I am at work my phone's weather location always gets all weird. It happened with my G2 (before this phone) as well. On the G2, it would show my location as in Japan. With the MT4GS, it shows as Denver CO. It updates when I leave the building, but it is still frustrating for numerous reasons. First, the time on my phone switches to Denver's time zone while at work. It throws me off whenever I look at my phone. Also, after I leave and the location updates, it doesn't update the time zone. I have to go to Settings -> Date and Time, and uncheck and recheck 'Automatic' for it to switch back to the correct time zone. Finally, while Maps will read my location just fine, other location-based apps seem to be thrown off as well.
One other question is about the hardware keyboard. I have Prediction turned on in settings but it never works. It's nice with the hardware keyboard because I can skip the alt+ keypresses for punctuation and it inserts automatically, and it will capitalize I, etc. If I'm not mistaken, this hasn't worked since the recent HTC update that moved us to Google Play Store.
If anyone has fixes and/or other info about these issues, I'd appreciate your input! Thanks so much.
Are you connecting to your work's wi-fi automatically when you are there? It could be that the location information (which would affect weather and time) is using your IP address info. I know when I connect to my wi-fi at home, it will alter my location to a nearby suburb.
Fuzi0719 said:
Are you connecting to your work's wi-fi automatically when you are there? It could be that the location information (which would affect weather and time) is using your IP address info. I know when I connect to my wi-fi at home, it will alter my location to a nearby suburb.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wish! Our WiFi doesn't even show up on my phone... they must have the SSID hidden. I think it's because the building is older, and it must have lots of concrete or something because radios, cell phones, etc don't work well in here. Mine only works because my desk is right by the main entry door and a few windows. I'm assuming that the GPS signal could get thrown off by that as well. I'm just hoping since Maps can locate me that maybe I could fix the rest of the location-based services.
retrokick said:
I wish! Our WiFi doesn't even show up on my phone... they must have the SSID hidden. I think it's because the building is older, and it must have lots of concrete or something because radios, cell phones, etc don't work well in here. Mine only works because my desk is right by the main entry door and a few windows. I'm assuming that the GPS signal could get thrown off by that as well. I'm just hoping since Maps can locate me that maybe I could fix the rest of the location-based services.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It may not even be getting a GPS signal, instead relying upon the location data of the celltower you're linked with. I've seen the location info being off by neighborhoods, but not to the extreme you've mentioned.
Uncheck the automatic update, then it will stay in the right timezone.
Also, I use swiftkey x, it has the best word prediction, and works great with the hardware keyboard.
yellowjacket1981 said:
Uncheck the automatic update, then it will stay in the right timezone.
Also, I use swiftkey x, it has the best word prediction, and works great with the hardware keyboard.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for the recommendation! The app is downloading now and I'm already excited because of the amazing reviews it got. I'm sure I'll love it. I was hesitant to uncheck the automatic setting because I want it to sync the time... but now that I think about it, once the time is set from the network... why would it need to sync? Unless I do a battery pull or something.

Question About Installing AndroidLost Apps

Greetings -Not sure if this is the right forum for this question, but here it goes anyway...
I installed the AndroidLost APPS onmy Samsung Fascinate...All went well and I'm able to signon to their website...
However not getting any results when clicking the GPS tab to get the phone's location sent to my e-mail account...
I don't have GPS active on my device(have not yet downloaded the apps for that with the vendor)...
Do I need to have GPS active in order to get the location?...I know it sounds like a silly question, but I was under the
impression that I would be able to get the location via the network & GPS would not be required...Any assitance would
be greatly appreciated...Thank you...
From the original website:
View on map
Find the location of your phone on a map. With AndroidLost you can find your phone with GPS precision. Even if the phone is indoor you will get a nearby location by network accuracy.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It does not talk about other network, I suggest you to try other apps like avast (you install it and it ask about the anti theft, after that you can uninstall the antivirus keeping the antitheft, it's free and if you're rooted it can resist to hard reset) or prey (free, open source). Avast can send you an hidden sms with the position of your phone and so do prey. I've also heard about wavesecure and cerberus a lot..
BTW you can determine the position of your phone with 3 things:
-WIFI (must be on an connected to a net, it can be turned on by some application)
-GPS (must be on manually, I think this one can't be turned on by apps)
-you phone network (avast can turn on data connection)
I suggest you to try these different solution to find the best working one for you

The fake location apps don't work (rooted device)

I have a rooted android device and have tried some fake location apps (non-root and root required). They work for Google Maps, it shows the location i choose. But for the other apps like connected2me and Tinder they don't work.
I tried to make the location setting as "device only" etc. but still don't work.
I started to think why it doesn't work and maybe it s because of this:
imgur.com/a/o66Jk
It says "Your device will need to use Wi-Fi and cell networks". As I understand, even though I choose a fake location, these kind of apps get the information from wifi provider, and that's the reason why it doesn't work.
Am I right?
Is there a way to solve this problem?
Edit: I just noticed something else. Unlike Tinder, connected2me doesn't want to use wifi and cell networks to find location. But it also doesn't show up in the location settings under "recent location requests" unlike the other apps. How does this app know my location without accessing my location lol
+1 i would like to find a trick. Normally when you are rooted you can do whatever you like with your phone even spoofing data to every app. So i'm sure there is a trick to do it. Anyway your post gives some nice clues to find the trick. I hope someone will share it here.

Categories

Resources